Question regarding the uri + more

[eluser]Dennis_gull[/eluser]
Any hints on question 2 & 3?

Before I decided to convert to CI i used the below code in the htaccess to change the GET form result url to a human friendly url, is this my only option?

Code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} search.php$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([A-Za-z0-9\+]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ search/%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^search/(.*)$ search.php?id=$1&a=1 [L]